ALASKA CRUISE part 3 TRACY ARM and SAWYER GLACIER

 

After leaving Skagway the ship sailed several miles south, past Juneau, and then up the Tracy Arm Fjord, also for several miles to as close as the ship safely could get to one of the two Sawyer Glaciers. I do not know if we looked at the south or the north one.

The undated pictures below were taken by a Canon  Power Shot S2 IS 5 mp camera with a 12x optical zoom. The dated ones on this and other blogs were by a Canon Power Shot A1100 IS 12 mp camera.

The ship entered Tracy Arm about 5 AM. I got out on the top deck about 6 AM to find many passengers already crowding the best vantage spots. This was one of my first views of the mountains on each side of the fjord.

The deeper we went into the fjord, the more icebergs we encountered.

Most of the pieces of ice we saw were white, but a few were a deep blue.

 

With the last couple of turns of the fjord we were able to see more and more of the glacier.

Crowd at the front of the ship at our closest approach. Yes, it was cool that early AM!

 

As the day wore on we were able to see more and more of the reflection of the glacier and mountains in the water.  The black object probably is an iceberg from the side of the glacier which has picked up sand and dark rock

This one shows the vivid blue of he face of the glacier. We did not see any calving - pieces breaking off and falling into the water.

 

A small seal rested on this iceberg.

The deep blue of this iceberg was unusual.

More blue icebergs against a backdrop of high mountains seen on the way out of Tracy Arm Fjord about 10 AM.